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Social Media Guidelines

These guidelines provided by the Office of Marketing and Communications are intended to assist you with the development and maintenance of a social media strategy for your college or department. Understanding the best practices for social communications and planning ahead will be key to the strength of your efforts on social media.

Social media is your online voice. Learn how to effectively use your social channel:

What does your group want to accomplish?Identify and prioritize your goals in order to monitor and evaluate your success. Take advantage of the opportunities to promote your group, its mission, and the University as a whole.

Who is your audience?Knowing your audience allows you to determine which social media platform best serves your need. Your audience's interests help you determine what kind of content works best. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram attract different audiences who consume content differently.

What platform works best?Determine which platform offers the most return on your investment. You may not have enough staff, content or audience size to effectively use all platforms.

Do you have enough content to sustain a presence?Successful Facebook accounts share 1-2 updates a days, and on Twitter 5-10. If you aren’t able to meet this number, it may be more effective to share your content with more central University channels.

What is your editorial voice?Social media is about engagement. Think about how you want to communicate – do you want to inform your audience on upcoming events inside and outside campus? Do you want to educate them about a topic related to their studies? Do you want to ask them questions? Think about how you would engage with your audience in real life. Whatever you do, don’t sound like a robot!

General Social Media Rules

Remember when you are using social media at work, you are representing St. John's University. Do not use sites for personal benefit or gain for you or individuals outside St. John's.